Degree Name

MA in Conflict Transformation

First Advisor

Paul Levasseur

Abstract

While collaboration among nonprofit organizations is happening in both San Francisco and Los Angeles on issues ranging from breast cancer to saving the whales, and while 75% of Americans are opposed to the war in Afghanistan (CNN, 2010), the antiwar movement on the West Coast has come to a standstill. This paper examines the dynamics of West Coast antiwar nonprofits, whether or not they are collaborating, and the advantages and disadvantages of collaboration. A successful collaboration among several antiwar nonprofits, and the combined use of their resources, might stand a better chance of creating a sustainable antiwar movement on the West Coast. This capstone seeks to explore the pros and cons of collaboration among nonprofits and the issues facing nonprofit collaboration and, therefore, the potential for a sustainable antiwar movement.

This paper looks at what the term “collaboration” means to the antiwar nonprofits of the West Coast and uses Social Movement Theory to help shed light on that issue. One single nonprofit organization or coalition does not have the power to bring the war in Afghanistan to a halt.

This paper is comprised of interviews with individuals who are heavily involved in the antiwar movement. Their accounts, as well as a wide framework of both antiwar and nonprofit collaboration literature, guide the research. With the antiwar movement steadily on the decline since 2003, does collaboration among antiwar nonprofits pose a potential answer to the vast majority of the public’s quest to end the war in Afghanistan, and allow for a sustainable antiwar movement?

Disciplines

Civic and Community Engagement | Family, Life Course, and Society | Inequality and Stratification | Peace and Conflict Studies | Politics and Social Change

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